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The 72nd Highlanders of Vancouver, B. C., departing for Europe. Like all Canada, the two western provinces are enthusiastically supporting the Mother Country
Alsace. I saw the foe swarm into my country and take it. My heart was filled with bitterness, but now I thank the Lord that I and mine are in America."
Among naturalized Americans there was great sympathy but no enthusiasm when the conflagration began. They seemed to realize instinctively that no great cause, no principle except self-interest, racial preju- dice and ambition guided the warring legions, that this sordid fight for the balance of power and of trade might seem necessary, holy and unavoidable to each belligerent, but that none of the nations, viewed from this perspective, had a valid reason for shouldering the musket except the two victims, poor little Belgium and hoary, defenseless China. If the United States, however, is to take sides, to exonerate one combatant and condemn the other, this dispassionate view of the conflict on the part of millions of naturalized citizens may give way to an outburst of passionate en- thusiasm in a foreign cause.
Is it good policy to weaken the warp of the nation's newly-woven fabric in the face of the present world crisis?
Western Canada's Loyalty to the Empire
THERE was a time, eighteen years ago, when Western Canada did not hesitate to discuss the advantages of severing its connection with Great Britain and joining the United States. The Boer War put an end to that discussion. Cana- dian blood mingled with English and Aus- tralian blood before Ladysmith and at Magersfontein. War aroused the im- perialist spirit, and this spirit bred a con- sciousness of solidarity which in the present crisis is bearing fruit.
Since the outbreak of the European war twenty per cent of the adult male popula- tion in Western Canada has donned uni- forms and begun drilling. The war fever with all its symptoms, down to spy hunt- ing, has swept the Dominion off its feet. Every paper of Western Canada has been urging its male readers to enlist. Though Canada itself has nothing to fear, nothing whatever to gain from the European war, the needs of the "Old Country" have found a most generous response. Only the Grain Growers' Guide, the official organ of the
